Cream Cheese Bars

This is a recipe that was given to me by a neighbor. They are so easy to make but you would never guess that by the taste! I usually wouldn't even try a bar that was made with crescent rolls, however, I tried these and loved them even before knowing that there were crescent rolls in them!

Ingredients:

2 - Tubes Original Crescent Rolls
2 - 8 oz. Boxes Cream Cheese
1 Cup Sugar (divided)
1 tsp. Vanilla Extract
1 tsp. Almond Extract
1 Egg

Directions:

Preheat oven to 375 degrees.

Mix cream cheese, vanilla, almond, 3/4 cup sugar and egg yolk. Beat with mixer until creamy. Spray 9x13 pan with nonstick spray. Spread 1 tube
crescent roll evenly over bottom of pan, sealing seams with fingers. Spread mixture evenly over crescent.

Cover mixture with second tube of crescent rolls, again spreading evenly & sealing seems. Beat egg white with fork until frothy, spread evenly over top. Sprinkle remaining 1/4 cup sugar on top layer.

Bake 20 minutes.

Refrigerate at least 4 hours before serving.

Black and White Cheescake Squares

This recipe is from Martha Stewart- it's very rich and tasty and the edge pieces are to die for!

Makes 24

Ingredients:

Vegetable oil cooking spray
2 cups plus 2 tablespoons all-purpose flour
3/4 cup unsweetened Dutch-process cocoa powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
10 ounces (2 1/2 sticks) unsalted butter, softened
2 cups granulated sugar
3 large eggs
21/2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract
8 ounces cream cheese, softened
1/2 cup confectioners' sugar

Directions:

Preheat oven to 325 degrees. Coat a 9-by-13-inch baking dish with cooking spray. Line dish with parchment, leaving a 2-inch overhang on both long sides, then spray parchment.

Sift flour, cocoa powder, baking soda, and salt into a large bowl. Cream butter and granulated sugar with a mixer until smooth. Add 2 eggs and 2 teaspoons vanilla, and beat until smooth, scraping down sides of bowl. Reduce speed to low; add flour mixture. Increase speed to medium; beat until incorporated.

Reserve 1 cup of dough; cover, and refrigerate. Press remaining dough into bottom of prepared dish. Refrigerate for 30 minutes. Bake until base is set and edges are puffed, about 25 minutes. Let cool in dish on a wire rack.

Mix cream cheese, confectioners' sugar, and remaining egg and 1/2 teaspoon vanilla in a medium bowl. Spread over cooled base; crumble reserved dough on top. Bake until filling is set, 25 to 30 minutes. Let cool in dish on wire rack, then lift out using overhang. Cut into 24 squares. Squares will keep, covered and refrigerated, for up to 3 days.

Pumpkin Bars with Cream Cheese Frosting

My friend Angela and I have started doing "Baking Days" where we get together and bake yummy things and drink yummy warm coffee (or tea!) and have yummy conversation. We then split up our treats and go on our merry ways.

The last two times we've done this (okay, the only two times we've done this), Angela has made these wonderful pumpkin bars. I have a feeling that she may make them every time we have a Baking Day... and there will be no complaints from me! I added the little candy corns faces on top. I saw pumpkin bars similarly decorated on the Taste of Home website and thought it was cute!

*Tip* These bars taste amazing refrigerated!

Ingredients:

(Look at the fall colors out my window! Perfect pumpkin baking weather!)


2 cups all purpose flour
1 tsp ground cinnamon
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
2 cups granulated sugar
3 large eggs, beaten
1 cup vegetable oil
1 cup canned pumpkin
1 cup walnuts, chopped (optional)
Cream Cheese Frosting (recipe follows)

Directions:

1. Combine flour, cinnamon, baking soda, salt and sugar.

2. Stir in beaten eggs, oil and canned pumpkin until thoroughly combined. Stir in chopped walnuts.

3. Spread batter into an ungreased 15x10x1 baking pan.

4. Bake at 325°F for 30 minutes.



5. Cool and frost with Cream Cheese Frosting, if desired. Cut into bars. Keep refrigerated

Cream Cheese Frosting



6 oz cream cheese, softened
3 cups powdered sugar
6 tbsp butter, softened
1 tsp vanilla extract

1. Combine frosting ingredients in a small bowl; mix until well blended. Spread onto bars before cutting.



(To give the pumpkin bars a Halloween face, I just used candy corn and a little bit of chocolate chips melted with a splash of milk.)

New York Style Cheesecake

I made a cheesecake for dessert for Mother's Day. I like my topping to be caramel or chocolate, but our guests prefer strawberry so I made a strawberry sauce to top the cheesecake. I mushed most of the strawberries up to be less chunky, but you can have your strawberries as large or small as you'd prefer.

Crust:
15 graham crackers, crushed
2 tablespoons butter, melted

Cheesecake:
4 (8 ounce) packages cream cheese
1 1/2 cups white sugar
3/4 cup milk
4 eggs
1 cup sour cream
1 tablespoon vanilla extract
1/4 cup all-purpose flour

Preheat oven to 350°. Grease a 9 inch springform pan.

In a medium bowl, mix graham cracker crumbs with melted butter. Press onto bottom of springform pan.

In a large bowl, mix cream cheese with sugar until smooth. (Do not over beat or your cheesecake will crack.... only use mixer for this part and use a wooden spoon for the rest).

Blend in milk, and then mix in the eggs one at a time, mixing just enough to incorporate. Mix in sour cream, vanilla and flour until smooth. Pour filling into prepared crust.

Bake in preheated oven for 1 hour. Turn the oven off, and let cake cool in oven with the door closed for 5 to 6 hours; this prevents cracking. Chill in refrigerator until serving.

Strawberry Topping:

1 pint strawberries, cleaned, stemmed and diced
1/3 cup white sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla

DIRECTIONS
In a saucepan over medium high heat, combine sugar, vanilla and about 1/3 of the strawberries. Cook, stirring frequently, until sauce thickens, about 5 minutes. Remove from heat. Pour mixture into a blender and puree. Combine the puree to the remaining strawberries in a bowl. Store in refrigerator until ready to use.

I drizzled (okay, globbed...) both caramel and chocolate on mine. It was almost sinful to eat. Almost.

My First Daring Baker's Challenge-- Cheesecake Pops

This was my first Daring Baker's challenge. I was really excited when I opened up the recipe, Cheesecake Pops. The picture that was attached looked so fun and so appealing and bright and cheery and colorful, that I couldn't read the recipe fast enough! I was happy when I finished the recipe to learn that there didn't seem to be anything that made me too nervous about attempting this.

This month's challenge was chosen by Elle and Deborah. It is from the dessert cookbook Sticky, Chewy, Messy, Gooey by Jill O'Connor.

It definitely is one that I will make again when I want to bring a festive dessert to a gathering or party. They tasted amazing... however, I think I would have liked the chocolate shell to be a soft and creamy chocolate rather than one that hardens (although the presentation wouldn't have turned out the same). I also left a few cheesecake pops naked so that we could swirl them in caramel before eating. Heavenly!!

The actual preparation of the recipe went well and without incident. I chose to stretch it out over 2 days so that I could take advantage of the refrigeration and freezer times. The only little mishap I had was when I prepared the water bath, it seemed to be a bit tricky to pour the water in the roaster without the water getting into the prepared batter pan. I quickly scooped out the water from the batter and ended up taking the entire cheesecake pan out of the roaster and filling the roaster with water first and THEN placing the cake pan back into the water (which of course, led my fingers to dip into the scalding water.... ouch.). And mine seemed to take a bit longer to bake until it was set.... it was probably closer to an hour before it was ready to come out of the oven.

Here is the recipe:

Makes 30 – 40 Pops

5 8-oz. packages cream cheese at room temperature

2 cups sugar

¼ cup all-purpose flour

¼ teaspoon salt

5 large eggs

2 egg yolks

2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract

¼ cup heavy cream

Boiling water as needed

Thirty to forty 8-inch lollipop sticks

1 pound chocolate, finely chopped – you can use all one kind or half and half of dark, milk, or white

2 tablespoons vegetable shortening (omit if using flavored coatings)

Assorted decorations such as chopped nuts, colored jimmies, crushed peppermints, mini chocolate chips, sanding sugars, dragees (optional )

1. Position oven rack in the middle of the oven and preheat to 325 degrees F. Set some water to boil.

2. In a large bowl, beat together the cream cheese, sugar, flour, and salt until smooth. If using a mixer, mix on low speed. Add the whole eggs and the egg yolks, one at a time, beating well (but still at low speed) after each addition. Beat in the vanilla and cream.

3. Grease a 10-inch cake pan (not a springform pan), and pour the batter into the cake pan. Place the pan in a larger roasting pan. Fill the roasting pan with the boiling water until it reaches halfway up the sides of the cake pan. Bake until the cheesecake is firm and slightly golden on top, 35 to 45 minutes.



4. Remove the cheesecake from the water bath and cool to room temperature. Cover the cheesecake with plastic wrap and refrigerate until very cold, at least 3 hours or up to overnight.

5. When the cheesecake is cold and very firm, scoop the cheesecake into 2-ounce balls and place on a parchment paper-lined baking sheet. Carefully insert a lollipop stick into each cheesecake ball. Freeze the cheesecake pops, uncovered, until very hard, at least 1 – 2 hours.

**I had this great cake slicer that worked perfectly for cutting the cheesecake into 2 oz. (give or take) squares and helped alleviate any messy edges that a knife would create**

6. When the cheesecake pops are frozen and ready for dipping, prepare the chocolate. In the top of a double boiler, set over simmering water, or in a heatproof bowl set over a pot of simmering water, heat half the chocolate and half the shortening, stirring often, until chocolate is melted and chocolate and shortening are combined. Stir until completely smooth. Do not heat the chocolate too much or your chocolate will lose it’s shine after it has dried. Save the rest of the chocolate and shortening for later dipping, or use another type of chocolate for variety.
Alternately, you can microwave the same amount of chocolate coating pieces on high at 30 second intervals, stirring until smooth.

7. Quickly dip a frozen cheesecake pop in the melted chocolate, swirling quickly to coat it completely. Shake off any excess into the melted chocolate. If you like, you can now roll the pops quickly in optional decorations. You can also drizzle them with a contrasting color of melted chocolate (dark chocolate drizzled over milk chocolate or white chocolate over dark chocolate, etc.) Place the pop on a clean parchment paper-lined baking sheet to set. Repeat with remaining pops, melting more chocolate and shortening (or confectionery chocolate pieces) as needed.
Refrigerate the pops for up to 24 hours, until ready to serve.